


five scenes in an office

by goshemily



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Legal, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/pseuds/goshemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The office of Valjean and Associates, Public Advocates, has seen its fair share of unhappy stories; this isn’t one of them:</p><p>“You might try talking to him.”</p><p>“We talk.”</p><p>“It can’t hurt to do it again.” Valjean claps him on the shoulder. “Just a bit of advice.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	five scenes in an office

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shakeweightless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakeweightless/gifts).



> Happy holidays, [shakeweightless](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shakeweightless)! I hope you have a wonderful new year.

“It’s not like you disagree with him,” Courfeyrac says, leaning over his desk to look at Grantaire’s courtroom sketch. In it, Enjolras towers over the squat prosecutor. Grantaire’s drawn him as righteousness personified, a shield between indicted children and voracious prisons.

“No, I know he’s right.” Grantaire’s smile is bitter. “That’s the problem, because I also know he can’t change anything. Maybe he’ll save one kid, maybe two. But transform the system? Don’t ask me to believe the impossible. That’s his job.”

Courfeyrac pats his arm. “Chin up,” he says. “Use the sketch to illustrate your column. One or two kids isn’t nothing.”

 _It’s not enough_ Grantaire doesn’t say, because no one knows that more than Courfeyrac. These friends of his all have such large hearts; he wonders how long they can keep going before they give out.

*

Enjolras loves the press and its power. He just doesn’t love _dealing_ with the press – especially not at the tail end of a long and unproductive meeting, when he’s come back to his office hoping for respite; especially not when he opens his door to find that Grantaire is leaning against his desk, where Enjolras should be sitting and preparing for his afternoon hearing.

“I need a punchy quote for tomorrow’s edition,” Grantaire says. “How about you shock the city and go ahead and admit you’re outmatched?” His tone is so reasonable.

“That’s hardly a shock,” Enjolras says, refusing to grit his teeth. “The prosecutor has more money and more lawyers than Valjean, or than any other public law firm in the city. Satisfied?”

Grantaire looks at him from under long lashes. “Hardly,” he says.

“We’re outmanned and outgunned. Satisfied now?”

“Not until you put aside your quest,” Grantaire says. “Stop tilting at windmills. It won’t get you anything but a broken lance.”

“I’m not leaving public law for...what was it you suggested last time? Tax law?”

“No one gets their heart broken doing taxes,” Grantaire says, and for a moment he looks serious. 

“Your heart’s just another weapon,” Enjolras says flippantly. “If it doesn’t work, fix it.”

*

“And how does my favorite crime reporter find our party?” Valjean asks.

Grantaire jumps.

Valjean tries to hide a smile behind one of his huge hands. “Happy New Year, Grantaire.”

“Happy New Year,” Grantaire says faintly.

“That engrossed in people-watching, were you?” Valjean’s found him out.

Not that Grantaire is particularly subtle, hovering near Joly and Bossuet but looking at Enjolras across the room. Enjolras is wearing a suit that looks right out of the 1940s, broad-shouldered, and his hair is newly cut. He catches the light.

“You might try talking to him.”

“We talk.”

“It can’t hurt to do it again.” Valjean claps him on the shoulder. “Just a bit of advice.” He sets off to refill the sandwich platters, and halfway across the room is accosted by Cosette’s fiancé Marius, who seems to be trying to offer to help him.

“Poor guy,” Bossuet says. “Can’t even get out a sentence.”

“Could you, if you were going to marry his daughter?” Grantaire asks. 

“I don’t know,” says Joly, laughter in his voice. “It would probably depend on if he was already rooting for my love life.”

Grantaire ducks out quickly after that.

*

It’s later than he often stays, 2:27, and Enjolras is so tired. He’s going through old transcripts for the third time, reminding himself that a strong cross is how they’ll win this case, but he is _so_ tired. His desk phone rings.

“Hey,” Grantaire says softly. “Come on down, I’m outside the building.”

“What.” Enjolras isn’t fully sure if he’s dreaming, or if it’s tomorrow already and he’s missed a press conference somehow.

“I was on my way home and I saw your office light. Come on, just for a second.”

Ultimately, Enjolras is too tired to say no.

“Oh,” Grantaire says a minute later, strangely surprised and tentative when Enjolras pushes open the front door. “I didn’t think you’d actually come. Uh,” and he laughs quietly, “I brought you this.” He holds out a carton of something and a bag.

“What,” Enjolras says again. His eyes are so dry it hurts to blink at Grantaire, ridiculous in an old jacket and the neon street light.

“Just some soup and chocolate. I wasn’t sure about coffee, how much longer you needed to be up.” He’s nervous, and the planes of his face are stark.

“Thank you?”

“Nah,” and Grantaire hands over the food and starts backing away, “keep on trucking, you know,” and his voice is faster as he turns, hands in his pockets and head down.

When Enjolras wakes in the morning at his desk with an uncapped highlighter in his hand, he’d think the whole thing was a dream, except that there’s an empty soup carton at his elbow and an ache behind his ribs.

*

“You are such an idiot,” Grantaire hisses. He tries to keep his hands gentle with the antiseptic, for all that they’re shaky. He wants to be gentle. He needs to be gentle. “You’re a _lawyer_ , fuck, don’t pretend you thought you could do better as a policeman’s punching bag than as someone’s emergency contact –”

“It was a peaceful occupation. I wasn’t there to be a lawyer,” Enjolras tells him.

“Fuck, I _know_.” Grantaire can’t help the wild laugh but he will be damned (he is damned, everyday) if he won’t do this one thing right. He finishes cleaning the scrape at Enjolras’s jaw, and raises the sleeves of his hoodie – a black hoodie, _Christ_ , if Enjolras weren’t so stunning in his anger and his pride he’d almost be ridiculous – to look at his wrists. There’s bruising around one of them; it’ll be purple tomorrow.

“I got grabbed.”

“I can see that.” He carefully, so carefully, applies ice from the office kitchen.

Enjolras doesn’t flinch, too in-character and too stalwart to bend.

Grantaire looks at his quick hands and long fingers, the bruising at his knuckles, and wants him. He wants him more now than ever, if that’s possible. Enjolras is wearing the marks of his belief and he’s beautiful. “Got anything else I should look at?” Grantaire asks, and it’s not even innuendo.

Enjolras pushes the sleeve of his hoodie farther up to check, and Grantaire’s breath catches. The edge of a tattoo shows, crisp blue. Enjolras sees his face and silently pulls the sleeve up to his elbow, and then does the same with his other sleeve, even more slowly. His arms are covered in ink, all of it text. Grantaire finds Che ( _the people liberate themselves_ ) and Freire ( _no reality transforms itself_ ) and Goldman ( _if they do not give you work or bread, then take bread_ ), Robespierre and Baldwin and de Beauvoir. _Every revolution demands the sacrifice of a generation_ : this is not art for art’s sake. This is another way for Enjolras to wear his faith every day.

“That’s...unexpected,” Grantaire manages to say.

“I’d never ask your first impression of me,” Enjolras says, half-smiling. “Or your second, or your third. I don’t think I’d want to know.”

“It didn’t involve you being the kind of person to get tattoos.”

“You should see the rest,” Enjolras says, and then laughs out loud – Grantaire can only imagine his own expression.

“I didn’t think you’d need the reminder,” he says finally.

“I don’t. It’s armor.”

“I’d rather you didn’t need armor,” Grantaire says.

Enjolras looks at him seriously. “Why do you keep trying to stop me?”

“I don’t. Or at least, I know you won’t stop.”

“Good.” Enjolras reaches out and Grantaire holds his breath. Enjolras cups Grantaire’s jaw and sits looking at him, eyes searching his face. Grantaire’s not sure what he sees. “I want to kiss you,” he says finally.

Grantaire meets him halfway.


End file.
